THE shock figure means many families will be left to foot a mountainous bill in the New Year as the recession bites hard.

BRITONS are heading for a staggering £4.1billion Christmas debt mountain.

Millions of struggling workers – badly hit by rising prices and falling incomes – are borrowing at record
levels to pay for the festive season.

That
means a massive New Year cash crisis for hard-working families as the bills roll in against a backdrop of three years of pay freezes or below-inflation rises and benefit cuts.

Eight out of 10 workers will struggle
to meet the cost of Christmas while 60 per cent say they are cutting back on festive spending.

The largest survey of its kind to measure the impact of the recession shows one in five will be borrowing on average £700 to make ends meet at Christmas.

Britain’s biggest union, Unite, commissioned a survey tracking 350,000 workers with detailed responses from 8462 of their 1.5million members. The findings capture the harsh reality of living in David Cameron’s age of austerity.

A leading charity branded the policies of the Coalition “ethically wrong”. Christmas presents are top target for cutbacks. Most people will borrow money on credit cards with a smaller number calling on family and friends.

Workers in their 20s are more likely to struggle to pay for Christmas with 29 per cent forced into debt.

But people in their 40s are borrowing the most and face a massive £839.81 to pay off their debts.

“As
money runs out and bills stack up, people will be burying themselves in
debt to pay for the essentials, let alone the Christmas turkey or this year’s must-have for the kids.

“There
will be no such worries for Cameron and Osborne as they mug hardworking
families to give handouts to millionaires in the new year.”

The
Child Poverty Action Group said: “The idea of pushing government debt down while pushing personal debt up as people have to borrow because basic support services are cut is ethically wrong and now we can see it is failing economically as well.”